Orthorexia or obsession with healthy eating.

In eating disorders, we know anorexics and bulimics. Today, it takes with orthorexics.

The food has always been an important part in our lives. The company is driving to consume more certainly, but also advocates for healthier food, more balanced. We are not talking here about organic foods, diets and Dukan consort or counting calories, but a deeper wrong which lead people to a nutritional imbalance coupled with social isolation.

At the heart of neurosis, the quality

We are in 1997 when for the first time Steve Bratman, California physician, uses the term “Orthorexia”. This term means a person whose main concern is to eat healthy. “Here it’s not the quantity but the quality is at the heart of neurosis. People with this syndrome have a food program in lieu of life, “said Dr. Bratman, Orthorexics spend their days thinking about their diet, plan in advance their menus. They subject themselves to rules more stringent and restrictive. For them the world is summed up in two irreconcilable classes, healthy food and unhealthy, permits and prohibited.

Apart from these two blocks, there are variations as wacky chew each bite 50 times before swallowing, do not eat vegetables that have left the earth for over 15 minutes, only eat fish, do not eat eggs, eat vegetables such as but not others, eat the peels for their vital components, do not eat them because they contain pesticides, etc Excruciating.

Basically, the desire to eat more healthily

Initially the desire is often the same: wanting to lose weight just by eating more healthily. Unfortunately, some people take the advice of nutritionists to the letter and there is orthorexia that awaits. Concrete example. We read everywhere that a fasting drink lemon juice has a purifying, detoxifying, it is good for health. If 90% of cases, it is recommended to drink this lemon juice diluted with warm water, an American nutritionist (specializing in coaching stars) recently explained that the warm water took away all the vitamins in the fruit. A simple phrase that can sow doubt.

Each of us has certainly an example of the same type to share. To this we add, as often in the case of nutrition, the example set by Hollywood stars. Take Winona Ryder, who swears by the Coca Bio or Julia Roberts, who never leaves home without his soy milk. If we can not ignore this information and just trust our head and our agency, we can quickly descend into “fundamentalism” (a neologism used to describe the phenomenon of orthorexia).

A dietary deficiency, add the social deprivation

The orthorexic runs a double risk. Medical first since the most important nutrition is to have a varied diet, carefully observing the food pyramid. No food should take precedence over the other, or else watch deficiency or overdose of certain vitamins and minerals. Danger of social deprivation then. Indeed, a diet too strict standards may lead the person to turn inward. Refusal of invitations to visit friends, to the restaurant. Refusals which may extend to divorce. The dietician Jannick Grin report advocates a simpler, more natural food. Also in Migros Magazine October 10, she says it’s important to keep the conviviality of the meal and also fun. “Listen nutritional advice yes but do not fall into the extreme.”

The ortorexique, an apothecary to the feeling of superiority

For orthorexic, his relationship with food is seen as a punishment, which is not its primary function. Orthorexics are often people who have given up a lot of things like tobacco, coffee and, frustrated at not being able to ban something, come to starve yourself. All calculations that is no longer an apothecary. We are not talking about calories or points that could count but to add vitamins, avoid fats, proteins. A nightmare that can be experienced as a feeling of superiority. You who eat chips, red meat and other soft cheeses, you should be ashamed. Learn from those people who eat tofu and quinoa biscuits all the time. Rest assured, orthorexics, unlike bulimics and anorexics are rare but knowing that this evil exists may, perhaps, prevent people from falling.